Examples of prior art in the field is given by U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,030,58 to H. Eldridge; 5,159,900 to W. A. Dammann and D. Wallman; 5,435,274 to W. H. Richardson, Jr.; 5,417,817 to W. A. Dammann and D. Wallman; 5,692,459 to W. H. Richardson, Jr.; 5, 792,325 to W. H. Richardson, Jr., and others, including U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,926,872, 6,673,322, 6,663,752, 6,540,966, and 6,183,604, all issued to the inventor herein.
Submerged electric arcs were discovered over 150 years ago by sailors soon after the first constructions of metal ships. The combustible character of the gas produced by submerged electric arcs was discovered at the same time by sailors assisting the submerged operators, the ignored bubbles of gas reaching the water surface being referred by reports of the time as “fire on water.” Consequently, both submerged electric arcs and the combustible nature of the gas they produce cannot be patented and are of public domain.
About one century ago attempts were initiated for the industrial production of the combustible gas produced by submerged electric arcs. Despite numerous efforts, no industrial and/or consumer utility emerged because the production of the combustible gas resulted to be very inefficient, thus excessively expensive, besides suffering from serious environmental problems.
The efficiency in the art herein considered is generally given by the numerical value of the volume or calorific heat of the gas produced divided by the electric energy used for its production. The efficiency of conventional submerged electric arc is very low for several reasons. To begin, the electric arc is indeed very efficient for the separation of water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen atoms. However, the latter recombine with an implosion into water because the hydrogen and oxygen atom are contained in a plasma traversed by the electric arc that ignites the combustion of hydrogen in an oxygen rich environment. In fact, the primary origin of the majestic glow of submerged electric arcs is not given by the arc itself, but rather by the recombination of hydrogen and oxygen into water. Additional reasons for the inefficiency of conventional; submerged electric arcs are given by the loss of power caused by the electric resistance of carbon electrodes, particularly when in the dimension needed for minimal operation prior to replacement.
In more recent decades the industrial production of a combustible gas via submerged electric arcs was considered again, but an additional problem emerged, this time of environmental nature. As it is well known, one of the biggest environmental problems afflicting our planet is the “global warming” caused by a disproportionate increase of carbon dioxide, CO2 in our atmosphere, estimated to be of the order of one million tons of CO2 per day as a result of the daily operation of an estimated number of about one billion cars, one million trucks, one hundred thousand planes, plus an unknown number of agricultural, industrial and military vehicles.
The serious environmental problem here considered is that the arc first creates around the tips of the electrodes a plasma composed by mostly ionized atoms of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon. The great affinity of carbon and oxygen, that is at the origin of life, then creates carbon monoxide CO with the release of heat, while the residual hydrogen recombines into the hydrogen molecule H2 with the release of additional heat.
However, CO is combustible and, when in an oxygen rich plasma traversed by the electric arc, CO is turned into CO2 thus providing a third source of heat. Consequently, the combustible gas produced by underwater electric arcs between carbon electrodes is generally composed by H2, CO, CO2, H2O and other gases. The alarming environmental problem here considered is that up to 25% of CO2 has been measured in the exhaust of said combustible gas, compared to about 5%-7% CO2 emission for gasoline operated cars. Consequently, a widespread automotive and other uses of said combustible gas could be potentially lethal for mankind due to cataclysmic climactic events that would follow the release of a large production of CO2 in the combustion exhaust.
All the above problems were resolved by U.S. Pat. No. 6,450,966 to this inventor via the PlasmaArcFlow™ process, consisting in the continuous flowing of the liquid feedstock though the electric arc. In fact, such a flow prevents most of the separated hydrogen and oxygen to recombine into water, thus permitting a dramatic increase of the efficiency that has been measured to be about ten times that of stationary electric arcs by therefore achieving for the first time industrial and consumer utility. Additionally, the PlasmaArcFlow also removes the various combinations of carbon and oxygen in single, double and triple valence bonds immediately following their creation, to such an extent that the possible measurement of macroscopic percentages of CO2 in the gaseous fuel prior to combustion is currently used as means to detect an insufficient PlasmaArcFlow.
The combustible gas produced by the PlasmaArcFlow process for submerged electric arcs is currently produced and sold under the tradename of MagneGas™ gas. Such a gas is clean because it generally contains no hydrocarbons due to the extreme temperature at which the gas is produced. Also, CO is part of the combustible gas itself, rather than a byproduct of the combustion as it is the case for fossil fuels. Additionally single bond C—O and double bond C═O contained in MagneGas gas are unstable and decompose under the combustion temperature releasing breathable oxygen in the exhaust. In fact, numerous measurements that can be easily repeated any time on request establish that the combustion exhaust MagneGas gas has no appreciable hydrocarbons or toxic substances such as carbon monoxide CO or nitrogen oxides NOx, while being essentially constituted by 50%-55% water vapor, 12%-14% oxygen, 5%-7% carbon dioxide the rest being given by atmospheric gases. Therefore, the combustible gas addressed in this invention do have a large ecological and, therefore, industrial and consumer utility.
Following the resolution of the basic problems of submerged stationary electric arcs via the new PlasmaArcFlow process, an additional laborious efforts were initiated by the inventor to achieve sufficient operating life prior to the replacement of the consumable carbon electrodes, as well so as to achieve the competitive cost of the gaseous fuel produced that is necessary for industrial and consumer utility.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,926,872 to this inventor addresses the issue of operating life by proposing a number of configurations for durable carbon-base electrodes. A main problem in the production of clean burning gases from underliquid electric arcs is that it is not possible to use tungsten electrodes, since they would melt almost instantly under 50 Kw or bigger power even when having 2″ OD. This occurrence leaves the use of carbon-base electrodes the sole electrodes capable of withstanding the very high temperature of the submerged electric arc that reach the 10,000 degrees F. for 100 Kw power.
However, carbon-base electrodes are rapidly consumed, not only in view of the delivery of big electric currents, but also because said consumption is necessary to provide the carbon needed for the stability of the gaseous fuel. For instance, a DC electric arc between 1″ diameter carbon-base rod electrodes within water or water soluble liquid feedstock powered by a 50 Kw DC generator generally consumes the positively charged cathode at the rate of about 1 linear inch per minute, corresponding to the consumption of about 0.76 cubic inches (ci) of carbon per minute or about 47 ci of carbon per hour. By noting that 50 Kwh generally produce 500 cubic feet (cf) of combustible gas per hour, the consumption of carbon per cubic foot of the produced gas is of the order of 0.1 ci/cf. The above consumption is dramatically reduced for the processing of carbon rich liquid feedstock, such as oils or oil wastes. In all cases, the consumption of the negatively charged anode is generally minimal and not superior to 1/10-th the consumption of the anode.
The problem of a durable configuration of the carbon electrodes has been addressed by U.S. Pat. No. 6,926,872 as well as by numerous other patents, such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 603,058 to H. Eldridge; 5,159,900 to W. A. Dammann and D. Wallman; 5,435,274 to W. H. Richardson, Jr.; 5,417,817 to W. A. Dammann and D. Wallman; 5,692,459 to W. H. Richardson, Jr.; 5, 792,325 to W. H. Richardson, Jr. Nevertheless, all these configurations are afflicted by one or another of the following insufficiencies:
1) Inability of delivering to the electrodes large powers of the order of 500 Kw or more. This limitation is inherent in all configurations of U.S. Pat. No. 6,926,872 and the other prior art patents where the copper rods delivering power to the electrode rotate for the scope of achieving a longer life. In fact, the rotation forces the delivering of power via sliding contacts that, as such, have notorious limitation in power delivery due to microarcs, abrasion, and other problems.
2) Inability to effectively enclose the incandescent area surrounding the electric arc. This inability is also evident in all configurations of U.S. Pat. No. 6,926,872 and the other prior art due, for instance, to structural differences between the anode and cathode, This limitation carries severe shortcomings in the utility of the invention. For instance, as clearly shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,450,966, it is impossible to recycle city, farm or ship sewage with an electric arc unless the incandescent area is enclosed by suitable skirt because, in the absence of the latter, there is always a portion of the sewage that is not exposed to the plasma of the electric arc with resulting inability to sterilize the liquid and resulting inability to use the invention for an important societal need.
3) Inability to reach high pressure and temperature. This inability is also evident in all preceding configurations because the copper rod delivering the power to the electrodes have to pass through seals in order to penetrate inside the apparatus. In turn, such a configuration is inoperative at large pressure because the force caused by pressure on the copper rods is so strong to prevent the instantaneous micrometric motions necessary for the control of the electric arc. The same configurations also do not permit large temperature, such as those over 500 degrees F., due to the consequential failure of the seals. These limitations are rather serious because the efficiency of the apparatus as defined above increases dramatically with the increase of the operating pressure since the size of the bubbles of the gas surrounding the arc is reduced with pressure thus increasing the travel of the arc through the liquid feedstock. The efficiency of the apparatus also increases with the increase of the operating temperature because the arc first evaporates the liquid feedstock, then separates the liquid molecules and then forms a plasma with their ionized atomic constituents. Consequently, operations at sufficiently high temperature eliminate the use of electric energy for evaporation with a consequential increase of the efficiency and reduction of costs.
This invention achieves for the first time an apparatus permitting: 1) the desired long electrode life of the order of weeks of continuous use or more prior to electrode replacement, 2) effective enclosure of the incandescent area of the electrodes to permit recycling of city, farm or ship sewage with its full sterilization; 3) delivery of unlimited electric power to the electrodes; 4) minimization of the power loss due to the electric resistance of the electrodes; 5) production of the combustible gas at any desired pressure in order to eliminate the use for expensive compressions of the produced gas, for instance, to directly fill up an automotive tank; 6) achievement of high operating temperatures of the order of 1,500 degrees F. or more so as to permit the utilization of the heat produced by the apparatus for the production of steam via a heat exchanger that, in turn, can be used for the production of “green electricity,” namely, electricity meeting the environmental specifications according to the Kyoto Accord; and 7) Automation in the extraction of the electrodes for easiness of service as well as complete automation of the operations as well as their optimization.